Homiletics of the Fathers of The Island of Patmos

THE MUSTARD GRAIN: "THE HUMPED WHEAT ROTS, IF IT IS LOST IT IS FRUITFUL "

The Gospel is therefore that grain that must be sown as much as possible: in these uncertain times of little solidity, precisely this seed of eternity and certainty must be given to the world for a pandemic that is above all isolation and distancing from love for God and neighbor.

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Author:
Gabriele Giordano M. Scardocci, o.p.

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Dear brothers and sisters,

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Today the Lord tells two parables to the crowd to make them understand the kingdom of God. We are that crowd too, today that on this Sunday we listen to His Word. Even when we were children, easily to make us understand some more complicated concepts, our parents, relatives and even the teachers used fairy tales, or simpler narratives. In this way we found ourselves immersed in an example, in a story or even in a tale and we were so closer, more familiar with what we needed to learn. Thus Jesus tells the parables of the sower and the mustard seed to make the great mystery of the kingdom of God closer and more familiar.. This is what the Liturgy of the Word on this XI Sunday in Ordinary Time.

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In the first parable we find the Sower who sows the seed. This seed, beyond the action of the sower, sprouts and grows. Then there is the action of the soil:

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«The soil spontaneously produces the stem first, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear; and when the fruit is ripe, immediately he sends the scythe, because the harvest has arrived "

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The kingdom of God then is like this fermenting seed. With a great sacred ferment, it reaches a maturity and finally it is then given to those who need it.

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Therefore the kingdom of God it is that place where one is prepared, taken care of, left to ferment to become fruitful gifts for the world. The kingdom of God, we will say, it is the Church, the New People of God who, in the union of all believers who in living their vocation become seeds of the Sower, that is, Jesus Christ. This kingdom grows, it expands in the love and charity of God: he welcomes within himself many other men and women eager for love and charity.

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This first parable then it is a call to all of us and to our life of faith and vocation: it is a simile in which we can ask ourselves if we are growing and fermenting, if we are giving our best in the state of life in which we are called, and if the fruits we offer to the world are truly fruitful because they are born from the Trinitarian seed of the Sower.

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The second parable or simile describing the kingdom of God is built on the mustard seed:

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“It's like a mustard seed that, when sown on the ground, it is the smallest of all the seeds that are on the ground; ma, when it is sown, it grows and becomes larger than all the plants in the garden and makes branches so large that the birds of the sky can make their nests in its shadow ".

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The image of the mustard seed it was familiar to the shepherds of ancient Judea, and for all those who lived in those lands. Once again, there is the idea of ​​this grain that grows, in a ferment which then makes it become so large that birds can nest there. Here Jesus almost inserts a visual contrast: the smallness of the seed at the beginning, and at the end of growth, its greatness. This image shows one of the qualities of the kingdom of God: its growth over time and history, waiting for a final fulfillment.

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That is why in this second simile, the kingdom of God in the strict sense is the Gospel that makes everyone who hears it holy. A Gospel that if we decide to make it ours, to live it coherently and authentically, it allows us to welcome a very great holiness and therefore to be creatures in the image and likeness of God. Truly the Gospel is a sacred leaven that gives us satisfaction, completeness and a lot of joy right now and then definitively in Heaven. The Gospel is therefore that grain that must be sown as much as possible: in these uncertain times of little solidity, precisely this seed of eternity and certainty must be given to the world for a pandemic that is above all isolation and distancing from love for God and neighbor. This, it is in fact that spiritual pandemic in some respects much worse than the coronavirus. The coronavirus pandemic virus does damage to the body, while the pandemic of the spiritual virus that has hit us, it deeply and severely damages the soul.

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Saint Dominic of Guzmàn wrote: “The heaped grain rots, if instead it is scattered it bears fruit ". For this clet us ask the Lord for the strength and grace to welcome the kingdom of God in us: to be seeds of living charity in the Church, to pour out rivers and words of eternal life over the whole suffering world, so that the gospel of life becomes the dawn of the civilization of love.

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Rome, 13 June 2021

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Rome, 6 June 2021

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Staff Blog

Father Gabriele

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